Evening Brief: January 30, 2012

True to expectations, pensions and Old Age Security dominated the new sitting’s first question period. NDP finance critic Peter Julian used the opportunity to resurrect an old line of attack against Stephen Harper demanding, “Why did he hide his agenda?” That agenda, the NDP insists, is to cut benefits to seniors. The government, however, has yet to specify what — if any — changes are planned, but is repeating the message that due to demographic trends the is system unsustainable and requires reform.

The NDP took a united front into the House Monday, but internal divides seem to be simmering up amid the party’s leadership contest. A document leaked to iPolitics Saturday shows a requirement that all party MPs donate $1000 to the national nest egg, a requirement Thomas Mulcair has been criticized for ignoring. Mulcair, though, says he’s never heard of such a document and, moreover, neither have any of the Quebec MPs he recruited.

On the iPolitics site, Rick Anderson, Mark Jarvis and Graham Fox have the stage Tuesday morning as they hash out ideas how to make Canada’s democracy work in an iPolitics Webcast. For more information, click here.